


Time's Slip

by ltthanekyrell



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Angst, Cardan in the Mortal World, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Immortality, Jude - Freeform, Judecardan - Freeform, Love, Married Life, Mortality, One Shot, POV Jude Duarte, Post-Book 3: The Queen of Nothing, Spoilers, jude x cardan, jurdan - Freeform, tcp, tfota, the folk of the air, tqon, twk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltthanekyrell/pseuds/ltthanekyrell
Summary: Jude Duarte has been High Queen and married to Cardan for almost a year. Now, Jude is still wrestling with her mortality, and what it means for their relationship. After a forced trip to the mortal world to attend Oak's birthday party, Cardan, who senses his wife's frustration, must convince Jude that her mortality would never make him love her any less.
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 141





	Time's Slip

Jude Duarte loosed a sigh, her vision beginning to blur at the edges, as she folded one newly signed letter of proposal and reached for another. It was a task she would’ve sworn she had started minutes ago as each additional precious hour ticked by. 

Time of equal value to a mortal’s minute could measure weeks, months, or years in the immortal lives of the Folk; within a fey minute, in a life where time was the least precarious of all things, duels could be challenged and settled, wars battled and won, revels took at least a fortnight to reach their crescendo, a peaceful nap under the elms and ashes could last as long as green leaves reddened, withered, and fell. A mortal minute, in turn, was almost over before it started, gone as quickly as a hummingbird flitted between ripened rose blossoms, vanished as swiftly as a star lancing over the patchy indigo sky. As the mortal High Queen of Faerie, Jude was all too familiar with the concept.

She unfolded the next letter, but before her gaze could flit over the opening formalities, it caught on the simple ring adorning her left hand, the ruby glittering in the firelight that danced at the wick of the candle that lit the space around her desk. It was the same ruby ring that Cardan had stolen and later returned to her the night they had exchanged their vows. Jude felt as if that night had been a lifetime ago, though in truth it had only been a little over a year, give or take a few months. At that moment, she felt the passing of time and her indifference to it weigh heavily in her bones. Perhaps the ways of the Folk had rubbed off on her in that respect after all.

She studied the ring for another moment, thinking of how irritated she had grown with Cardan that night. The duty of reading and approving requests and proposals was one they shared, and though he often grumbled incessantly about it, he always did his equal allotment of the work. Well, almost always. 

It was near the solstice, a highly anticipated holiday in Faerie, where they celebrated the return of spring, new life, and rebirth after the cold winter months. It meant at least a week of revelry and celebration, and tonight was no different. Cardan had elected to partake in the revel still occurring in the great hall, undoubtedly eager to drown himself in wine and charm courtiers for a third consecutive night. Her ankles still ached from the endless amount of dancing they had done in revels over the last few days. He had invited Jude to join him. But after a tiresome day of swordplay to put off her obligations even further, she knew just how many letters and proposals would be heaped over her desk, waiting for her. When she denied him for that very reason, she had hoped he would have chosen to put his merriment aside for just one night to shoulder the burden of the task along with her. 

Cardan was a wickedly good High King when he chose to be, but his natural aversion to paperwork and tedious labor had become quite a thorn in Jude’s side. Or, she traitorously thought, perhaps he had simply meant to avoid another night spent almost exclusively at her side. 

Just the week before, he had met with the council without including her. Days after, he had blatantly ignored her beckoning to their chambers to drink and play cards with the Roach, while she fell asleep very much alone in their bed beneath the spider silk coverlets that just couldn’t seem to warm her or make her feel as safe as she felt when he held her. She turned the glinting ruby ring once more in the candlelight. She furrowed her eyebrows as she wondered if within the year that they’d been married and the fey minute Cardan had existed as her husband, he had already grown bored of her. No, that was nonsense. It had to be nonsense. She told herself that there was no sense in dwelling on it.

She dropped her hand, pressing her lips into a thin line as she read the first few sentences of the new letter. It was a complaint; a disagreement between two lower courts over a strip of land near Fairfold. She was poised to scribble that she would pass the judgment to the Alderking, Severin, whose domain was far closer, when she felt the warmth of a body looming just behind her, and a moistened breath, heavy with the cloyingly sweet scent of honey wine, exhaled on her cheek. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

On instinct, Jude unsheathed the jeweled dagger at her belt, and between one breath and the next, she pointed it to the assumed throat of the intruder. Thankfully, the training she’d once received as a spy and a general’s daughter allowed her to mask her immediate shock. She had more than an inkling of the intruder’s identity, which rendered her attack entirely warranted, given he should know far better than anyone just how much she hated surprises. She stated cooly, “You have five seconds to back away before your throat is reduced to ribbons.”

She wasn’t entirely serious, of course, but the wobbled footsteps were instantaneous at her threat. Jude whirled from her chair, and surely enough, her eyes narrowed on a tipsy Cardan, a folded piece of parchment clutched in one hand, his other raised in surrender.

“My villainous wife,” he greeted warmly, coining a new one of his strange but thoughtful terms of endearment. Though, Jude could easily detect his faint nervousness in his too wide, awful grin, and the flicking of his lion’s tail beneath his forest green velvet cape. She lowered the dagger.

Her husband was painfully beautiful, as always. He was in an ivory doublet that shimmered when it caught the correct light, adorned with little maple leaves of the darkest green embroidered in spun gold thread. Several burnished gold cuffs and a dangling earring with a sapphire at the end decorated his knife-sharp pointed fey ears. Thick and blearily smudged kohl lined his lower lids, bringing out the darkness of those eyes she had come to be so fond of; his irises were pools of liquid night that always swam with mischief, the gold ringing the edges brought out by his rich gold circlet. It was intentionally askew in his soft raven-down curls, an identical match to the one that sat comfortably over Jude’s brow. 

She felt severely underdressed by comparison, her too-wide human hips completely filling out her dark and slitted skirt, the crimson brocade of her most comfortable tunic rendered dull in the face of his extravagance.

“Finished with your revelry so soon?” she asked, as her gaze scrutinized his inability to hold still. Tipsy, all right.

“You’re angry with me,” he stated, as he promptly cocked his head. Changing the subject. Faeries like Cardan were unable to lie, instead having to depend on riddles, avoidance, and half-truths to use to their advantage. Having grown up in Elfhame, Jude had become able to see through their trickery, and it was how she knew that when he completely avoided her question, he might have every intention to return.

“I am not,” she replied, presenting her own version of a half-truth. The corners of his mouth lifted into a smirk. He had probably seen right through her. He stepped closer, his fingers finding Jude’s cheek, and her chest tightened as she looked upward to meet his eyes, his parted, wine-stained lips so close they nearly brushed her nose.

“Perhaps I missed my wife,” Cardan suggested, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. His wine-heavy breath mingled with the green scent of forests of new life and dark amber exclusive to him, clouding her senses. She searched his face for any sign of half-truth, and when she found none, she softened. Perhaps he still desired her presence after al-

Her train of thought was broken as she once again noticed the piece of parchment clutched in his hand. She took a step back, and his arm dropped.

“What is that?” she asked. He held it up in her line of sight, and her name was scribbled in chicken-scratch over the front, too similar to her sister’s handwriting for it to be a coincidence.

“A letter from Vivi. She said you had been ignoring her invitations, so she had it delivered to me. Why would you be avoiding Vivi?” Though Jude was certain he should already know her answer, she decided to oblige him.

“It’s not Vivi I’m avoiding,” she admitted. A beat later than it should have, understanding crossed his features. 

“Surely you realize that you must face Madoc eventually,” he reasoned, his crow black eyes staring beseechingly into her own. It was true. She had been avoiding visiting Vivi and Oak at their chosen home in the mortal realm for fear of having to face her adopted father. It had been nearly a year since she had banished the latter there for treason on the night of her coronation. Though he had promised he bore no grudge for the judgment she had passed, she would not put it past the merciless former general to be resentful of the land he had now been forced to call his home. Resentful towards her for living the life he had toiled for. No, she did not know that she wanted to face him just yet.

“Let me read it,” she muttered as a response, reaching for the parchment that he easily yielded. She turned her back to him and broke the seal, and allowed Cardan to look over her shoulder and decipher its contents with her. Vivi was, exasperatedly at that point, passing along Oak’s request for her attendance at his ninth birthday party, to be held in the same yard behind her apartment where Jude had once attempted to instruct him in swordplay. She knew instantly that she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, avoid her little brother’s invitation.

“She contacted me so late, I’ll have to leave within the hour,” Jude realized aloud, immediately bustling from the workroom to pack some clothing and necessities in a saddlebag in case of an overnight stay. 

“Might I recall the many invitations she has sent you before this one, over several weeks?” he teased, following her into their shared bedroom. She shot him a glare before disappearing into their closet. She gently shoved her numerous elaborate and lavish dresses and tunics out of the way to get to her small collection of modern clothes, stashed in the back. 

“I should be gone a day or two,” she started as she stepped out, a dusty pink sweater and leggings hanging over her arm. “If you return to the revel now, you’ll have ample time to run down our wine stores before I return,” she suggested bitterly. Cardan furrowed his manicured brows, his features sharpened as he pursed his berry-colored lips.

“I intended to accompany you, actually,” he replied, confusion lacing his velvety tone. Jude stopped what she was doing to twist and narrow her eyes at him, trying to pick up on any deeper concealed plot behind his suggestion. 

“No. Absolutely not,” she denied him, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. She couldn’t seem to shake her thoughts from earlier. Was he already growing bored with her? Was this some sort of ploy to get her to let her guard down? If so, she would have to be the one to push him away first. She couldn’t let him have the upper hand, not this time. She still struggled enough with allowing herself to fully trust those she loved, and he had already taken advantage of said trust before. She would not allow him to hurt her like that ever again. 

His confusion appeared to deepen.

“Why couldn’t I join you?” he asked inevitably. He rose from where he’d been sitting on the bed, nearing her once again. Jude had to think of something, fast. She searched his lovely face, noticing the way the kohl under one of his eyes was smudged as if he had forgotten about it and rubbed an eye in his drunken state.

“You’ll scare the mortal children,” she blurted. An absurd excuse, but not without basis. When she had been stolen away to Elfhame as a child, the fey and their ethereal, entirely inhuman beauty had terrified her. More than that, she had spent so much of her life feeling inferior to them because of it. The reminder of those past feelings only seemed to push her exasperation with her husband further. Infuriatingly, Cardan barked out a laugh.

“Every mortal children’s tale I’ve read begs to differ,” he took another step closer to her, and though her instincts begged her to, she couldn’t back away. She vaguely recalled the copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland she had stolen from his bookshelf in Hollow Hall. Of course, he was familiar with mortal tales, though she could never quite figure out his fascination with them. 

“And if you think I look wicked tonight, darling, why don’t you just say so?” he half-crooned. Jude clenched her teeth and fought the urge to break glass. But more than that, she fought the urge to close the little space that now remained between them, to hungrily meet those sensuous smirking lips with her own.

“All faeries are terrifying to mortal children, Cardan,” she breathed, hating the effect he had on her, and hating that he was winning their little disagreement even more. Like her adopted father, Jude did not like to lose. No, she detested it.

“Yet Vivi and Oak live among them.” His grin was feline as if he were one chess move away from being able to declare checkmate. She was trapped, unable to dispel him. Her two fey siblings had, indeed, managed to live among mortals under glamour for over a year now, though neither of them were nearly as unpredictable as her sinful husband could be. 

Jude deduced that the scowl on her face had likely become permanent as she finally gritted out a defeated, “Fine.”

-

Dawn was breaking as Jude and Cardan silently neared the sea, saddlebags in tow. She watched him as he picked a couple of stalks of ragwort to enchant them into the raw-boned yellow ponies that would bear them over the little strip of sea that separated them from the mortal world. It was striking how human, yet utterly inhuman he looked in the too-big striped shirt she had stuffed him into, the way it hung from his lithe torso. He kept his tight pants and boots, and despite her insistence, he had refused to remove the dangling earrings from his pointed ears, or the thick kohl from his eyes and gold paint from his cheekbones. She had deftly changed into the clothes she’d been holding while she was warring with him over his request to chaperone her.

She spoke very little as they flew over the briny sea, mist nipping at her bare ankles as she tried not to think about how nervous she was to be bringing him back to the mortal world once again. While he had seemed merely curious the first time she had reluctantly brought him for their wedding party, she still feared the way he would view the land where she had come from, though, by then, Jude could scarcely identify with it. He could still hate it, she thought to herself, just as she had that first time. He could hate it, and use it against her. He could hate it, and one day it could be all the more reason for him to be resentful of his very mortal wife.

They landed in the dull grass outside Vivi’s apartment building, the air filled with the scent of car exhaust and the remnants of a burning grill and barbeque, likely from the night before. Jude glanced at Cardan, whose gaze was only mildly curious, having already been to that one area before. On his order, the ponies vanished, the stalks already blowing away on the faint breeze. She wordlessly turned away from him and stalked up the stairs. She knocked on the door, and it was several minutes before a bleary-eyed Vivi answered.

“It’s about time,” she muttered as she scanned Jude, her cat eyes glowing in dawn’s burning orange light. Strands of her straight umber hair, mussed by sleep, were tucked behind her furred, pointed fey ears. Her sharp cheekbones cast shadows over the rest of her face, her very thin body completely hidden beneath a baggy nightgown. One that definitely wouldn’t appear so baggy on my human body.

She raised her eyebrows at Cardan. “Come in, majesties,” she said as she opened the door wide enough to allow them entry. She curtsied sarcastically as they passed, and Jude couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sentiment. Though she’d been avoiding her letters because of Madoc, she’d missed her fey half-sister. Cardan deposited himself at one of the stools in the kitchen as Jude followed Vivi to the coffeemaker. 

They spent much of the morning laughing and catching up, Jude updating her sister on Elfhame, and Vivi updating her on the antics of their fey family’s actions in the mortal world following their banishment. Since she had chosen to live among mortals with her girlfriend, Heather, long before their father’s banishment, it was up to Vivi to teach them of the place they had been exiled to. Though it had been amusing at first, Vivi, like most fey, had grown bored of the task rather quickly. 

The Folk were fickle in that way. The reminder did nothing to ease her worries about Cardan.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” Vivi crossed the kitchen, snatching a slip of paper held onto the fridge by a magnet. She handed it to Jude. It was a list. “I need you to run to the craft store downtown to pick up the party supplies for Oak,” she explained. Jude’s eyebrows furrowed.

“His party is in a few hours, and you haven’t picked up the supplies yet?” she asked, somewhat incredulously. Vivi only grinned.

“You’d best hurry!” was her response, and Jude couldn’t decide if she was being her typical scatter-brained self, or if she had truly meant to annoy her further. Jude sighed.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” she told her husband, hurrying to the door, hoping that he would not follow her.

“Why don’t you bring Cardan?” Vivi called, as if she could sense every motivation behind Jude’s quick departure. Jude froze in her tracks and turned, scowling as Cardan stepped down from his stool and sauntered after her.

-

Though he poked at her nerves further through his silence on their walk to the bus stop, and Jude could not decipher if the lack of words was out of distaste or curiosity, nothing could have prepared her for the bus ride itself. 

She’d never seen those crow black eyes grow so wide as they did when the bus first rolled to a stop before them. “That massive metal box is able to move without magic?” he’d said. Jude grabbed his wrist and dragged him on board. She took a few wrinkled bills from her pocket and handed them to the driver before she found them a pair of seats. He jumped about three feet as the wheels whined, and the beast rolled into motion.

When Cardan wasn’t gawking at the variety of fellow mortal passengers, his gaze was glued to the houses, sidewalks, and eventually brick and concrete buildings they passed on their journey. If Jude hadn’t been annoyed with him for other predated reasons, she might have viewed his actions as amusing, or maybe even… charming. 

But he had so many questions. So many damned questions.

“Why is that small wolf guiding that mortal along by a rope?” He asked as he turned from the window to gaze at Jude innocently. She shifted in her seat and tried not to notice the strange looks the other passengers fixed them with as she answered.

“It’s not a wolf, Cardan, it’s a dog. And she uses the leash to make sure the dog doesn’t run away.” He frowned at the explanation but did not offer a rebuttal, instead fixing his stare on the older woman occupying the seat across from them. 

Dozens of questions later, they finally reached their destination. Jude clutched Vivi’s list in one hand and her husband’s wrist in the other as they exited. Thankfully, she saw the craft store less than a block away from the stop, and as soon as they stepped outside she released him. He spared less than a second to send her a strange look before his curiosity once again overtook him. Just as he had his first time in the mortal world, Cardan whistled a bawdy drinking song as he less-than-subtly goggled each human they passed, and despite her irritation, Jude found herself smiling a little at the reactions of those taking in the nosy curbside spectacle that was her fey husband. Though she was just as human as those who shared the sidewalk, Jude knew that even in their modern clothes she, as well as Cardan, fit about as well amongst mortals as a pair of lovely swans in a gaggle of honking geese.

Once they reached the craft store, she hustled Cardan inside. She peered at the list, then scanned the signs over the aisles that listed which items each contained, trying to determine how to get the tedious task done as quickly as possible. She glanced at Cardan again, who’d fallen completely silent. He appeared overwhelmed, looking everywhere and nowhere at once, unsure of what to place his focus on. In other words, he was a complete liability.

As her mind mapped out the quickest course of action, she decided to deposit him in the first aisle she saw that was completely devoid of mortals, and find each item on her own. “Just stay right here, and don’t bother anyone. I’ll be right back,” she ordered, before turning and, probably against her better judgment, leaving him behind.

-

It took Jude minutes to find every item on the list, and, nervous that he’d disappeared somewhere in that short window of time, she slowly approached the aisle where she’d left the High King of Faerie. 

To her relief, as she came around the shelf, she found him rooted to the very spot she had left him. That relief, however, lasted no longer than seconds. 

“No!” she bellowed, running down the aisle just as Cardan raised a handful of red glitter to his lips and… licked it. Licked it.

He barely flinched at her shouting, his malevolent eyes glinting stones of onyx as he looked up and fixed her with a dubious smirk. The little shit. There was glitter coating his lips, red as blood in the store’s pulsing artificial lighting. Jude simply gaped.

“Wife, tell me, how did they cut these rubies so small?” he questioned, completely serious. She studied the pile he’d amassed in his palm, undoubtedly at least half the container, at a loss for words, when an impish idea entered her head.

“Here, look a little closer,” she suggested, guiding his hand closer to his face. He dutifully listened, his nose a hair’s breadth away from the pile so that he may inspect it as she’d directed. He’d fallen so easily into her trap that Jude could not resist the urge to slam her palm into the back of his hand.

She let out a rare cackle as the glitter coated his pale, arrestingly sculpted face, the front of his modern shirt, and even some of his midnight curls. He sparkled as handsomely as her ruby adorned wedding band in firelight. His expression grew surprisingly pleasant at her reaction, seeming to enjoy her laughter, though it quickly morphed into something more fiendish. Faster than a blink, Cardan towered over Jude and shook the glitter from his hair into her own like a sheepdog. She loosened a horrified shriek. Before she could skitter away, his arms encircled her middle, and he squeezed her tightly, burying his glitter-plagued nose in her thick, chestnut-colored hair. 

Forgetting herself, forgetting every worry that had troubled her since the night before, Jude collapsed into him in a fit of giggles, the laughter warming her belly. She relished the feeling of being squeezed in his arms, his limber chest against her back, his own joyous laughter muffled as his lips brushed her scalp. 

But when they finally collected themselves, Jude could see Cardan frown from the corner of her eye when he noticed she began avoiding his gaze. Traitorously, she wondered just how much longer she would be able to laugh with him in that way, and if moments like that one were fleeting.

-

“I’m hungry,” Cardan said as they exited the store. Jude held back an exasperated sigh, wanting to get back to Vivi’s apartment as soon as possible. She surveyed the immediate area for a place to eat, and though she spotted several, most were rendered impossible by Cardan’s innate inability to eat salt. Why must mortals coat everything in salt? Despite the fact that it was 11 a.m., Jude realized that the only real possibility was the ice cream shop two doors down.

“Let’s go,” she muttered, still unable to look at him as she led him toward the shop. They got inside just after they’d opened, with no competition from other mortals as they marched right up to the counter. She could tell just as Cardan caught sight of the twenty different flavors that he’d bombard her with questions once again, so an aggravated Jude ordered two bowls of vanilla bean and went to pay before he could even open his mouth. After paying, they slid into a booth in the far corner. She finally looked up at her husband when she could feel the heat of his stare boring into her head.

“What’s wrong, Jude?” he asked soberly, looking genuinely concerned, his merry demeanor all but vanished. “You’ve seemed a little disheartened by something all day.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” she denied too quickly, her gaze dropping to the pastel pink tabletop. He reached over and placed his cold fingers under her chin, gently guiding her to look up at him once again.

“You know, darling, you can be a horrible liar sometimes,” he joked, attempting to cheer her up, but she didn’t mirror his faint smile. “Have I done something?” he prodded.

Jude, who had always grappled with her emotions and her ability to express them, remained silent for a beat, struggling to decide if she should come clean or attempt to deny him further. She was terrified to face the truth in what Cardan’s response may be if she laid it all out on the table.

But more than anything, Jude prided herself for her bravery, and she knew deep down that honesty and sharing her emotions with the one she loved most was just another part of that. It was equal to carrying out a new battle strategy when the odds were stacked against you, or making the first move in a duel you were likely to lose.

“It’s silly,” she started, swallowing her fear and mustering every ounce of courage. “I’m terrified of all of this… this wonderful life, this happiness I’ve found in the past year just… going away. That you’ll grow tired of me quickly, and want to move on.”

“Jude-” he interrupted, but she ignored him.

“You’re immortal, Cardan. This is only the beginning of a long, long life for you, and though I may not physically age, I’ll be old and gone before you can even reach the height of your existence. The last thing you’ll want is tedium, and before long, the last thing you’ll want is me,” she finally ended her rambling, her trembling hands the only sign of vulnerability she was willing to show.

When she fell silent, Cardan stared at her. He stared for several long, painful moments, and Jude fought back the urge to get up and storm out of the shop. Then she noticed the sadness in his eyes, those depthless, gold-rimmed eyes of his that she cherished so dearly.

“Jude,” he paused, appearing to gather himself before he continued. He took both of her fidgeting hands in his and kissed each slowly and with great care. “Jude, I do not care how long I’m meant to live, nor do I care how long you can spend it with me. My heart belongs to you just as it had the day I first surrendered it, and nothing in the world could convince me to seize it back. You would grow bored of me far before I could ever grow bored of you,” he grinned then, that endearing reaction to his nerves that he could never quite seem to shake. Jude, her heart pounding in her chest, grinned back.

“I am as in love with you as I was the day I married you. More so, even. Disgustingly so, my sweetest nemesis,” he finished. She could feel her tensed muscles relax.

She was never more grateful for the Folk’s inability to lie than she was at that moment. Jude squeezed his hands. “I love you, Cardan, but if you don’t start eating that ice cream, it’ll melt into a soupy mess,” she said, laughing a little.

When the High King and High Queen of Faerie left the ice cream shop she, for once, did not swat him away as he kissed a piece of glitter from her nose in the eyes of the prying public, those black pools of his bursting with adoration. Then they walked, hand in hand, to the bus stop to await the entirely un-magical, moving metal box.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a huge tfota fan for a long time, and I actually wrote this for a fanfiction unit in class. This was my first time writing tfota fic and I loved it, so hopefully I'll be able to write some more in the future.
> 
> (And if anyone was wondering, I got an A-)


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